


The Cardassian Nail Trick

by bmouse



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: All Standard Dukat Warnings Apply, Epic Narcissism, Gen, Narcissism, Somewhere around there, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 17:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1949871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dukat has fallen in the world a bit; he used to have beautiful Bajoran girls doing this particular part of his beauty routine. Now it's just Damar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cardassian Nail Trick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinsnip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/gifts).



> My first-ever commission, would you believe it? Started out as a series of giggles and chat logs and at some point she was like "dude, I will pay you to write this." So I did. Also thank you for the beta! My writing may improve soon since I'm not just flailing around by myself anymore.

With a slow stretch, the scales over his spine rippling under his uniform cuirass. Gul Dukat surveyed his reclaimed territory. This really was more like it, he thought as he leaned forward in the chair. It was the same chair even, his old chair. The underside of the legs had faint scratches in a familiar pattern:  impressions of his diligence, of the long spans of hours he’d spent in this very room. Days when he had taken his boots off and let his footclaws curl around the plastic struts and flex either with impatience or contentment. 

Yes, it was very like him; he was a leader of the masses not so far above the regular service-people as to disdain their habits. That’s why he was always generously lenient whenever he surprised some of the younger Glinns at their posts to find them with their shoes off and their feet resting on a heat-pad. Space tours offered so few comforts, even to their hardy kind.

Today, however, held the promise of something comforting: the reinstitution of a ritual that had been carried out so many times in this space and thanks to Commander Sisko's odd fit of frugality would resume almost as if it had never been interrupted. What better sign of a worthy opponent than how the other man had sat in this very chair without exchanging it for something else in deference to inferior Human physiology? Prolonged contact with the Commander had, however, left the chair with a sort of loamy, earthy scent. The hand-rests in particular now had a worn-smooth, almost oily quality that his perfect memory would have recalled from the years before. Perhaps he should order Damar to have it washed? But no, how much more satisfying to cover that odd scent with his own, to assert his dominance completely over the chair, the office, the station and eventually, inevitably, the planet below.

A process that had already begun! For example: that circular implement Sisko had liked to hold, the gamepiece from some Terran pastime was now no longer free to sit boldly on top of the desk in its ornamental stand. He had removed it to the bottom drawer where it could languish in the darkness, known only to himself and to be brought out only at his whim.  Or whenever a psychological edge could profitably be employed against the hot-tempered Human.

But now the preparations: with a smirk he loosened the clip-fasteners of his boots. Years before, smaller, more delicate hands had done this for him but alas his current selection was limited. Despite what his cheapest-spirited regrettably unimaginative detractors might have said in the past, he and Damar had never had that type of relationship. 

Just then, the knock came. His second entered, flanked by a few of the steady-handed personnel that were so close to the end of their rotations that they rejoiced even in bodyguard duty. Loosely clasped in his hands was a black document case of buffed duranium.

"I've amassed the requested items, sir.” he said evenly.

"Good!" He couldn't quite keep a pleased, eager note out of his own tone. "Let's go over them immediately; I've cleared you for the rest of the day. We must be thorough, mustn’t we, Damar!"

What a reliable man! They could be going over inventory or a list of traitors to transfer to the Order and he would still have that exact fruit-eating purse to his lips. Dukat had always thought the other officer was sometimes downright effeminate in his unwillingness to react to things. How had he managed to find a wife when his only outbursts of passion and vitality seemed to be reserved for liquor?

Still, when they were left alone in the office he let Damar have a moment to remove his cumbersome breastplate. It would certainly interfere with him kneeling down.

“I’ve had the engineers prioritize converting the command center to a more reasonable temperature.”  
 “As I see it, sir.”

He pulled a vintage small bottle of sharp-kanar out of the bottom drawer. Usually he would drink Springwine beforehand but one had to be sensitive to the homebody palate of one's subordinate. Carefully he poured a dram into the bottle’s convertible lid. 

“Only a taste now!” he joked as he nudged the little heavy glass across the desk with his knuckles.

That finally got a humorous rise to the other man’s brow ridges. Both were aware of the nigh-miraculous way Damar’s hands grew even steadier when he was drinking. Even his aim improved.

Chirping as the security code was entered, the black case snapped open. Again, a slightly flat utilitarian note… Once all the proper necessities had been stored in an intricately carved wooden box and the contents were handled by the graceful and very smooth little hands of a former maintenance worker. 

It had been a coup stealing the girl from the other department. Military women were depressingly utilitarian like that, they didn’t appreciate her aesthetic value. Instead the head Engineer had complained that the girl’s thinner skin left her more affected by the little sparks from the wires and he had taken the opportunity and had her transferred to his staff. The Engineer had seemed pleased when he assigned her two rougher-skinned males from the processing plant in exchange.

The girl had been appropriately grateful and her sweet temperament was perfectly suited to hospitality duties. As time went on she even developed a knack for scheduling her ministrations on the exact weeks when he was feeling vexed.  What did had ended up happening to that lovely girl? He supposed she must have been sent back planetside. Perhaps now she was somewhere far below his feet living the graceless life of a farmer. Perhaps those steady hands were now engaged in weeding the spring cabbage crop. How dispiriting! He promptly put all thoughts of her out of his mind.

Nevertheless he could not resist, not craning his neck exactly, but perhaps a discreet stretch over his desk to glimpse inside the case as Damar savored the last lingering drops from his glass. Somewhat to his surprise he found it rather well stocked. Damar was really not a man to be underestimated! Perhaps he should ask where he had acquired such a wide selection but then again such minutiae were beneath him. 

(Damar at this moment felt an acute pang of relief amid his fermented bliss. _He_ would rather not explain that he procured everything by staging a raid on the Dabo girls’ dressing room in search of Quark's 'contraband.' Neither could he accurately relay the irate Ferengi’s advice of  'don't drink them all at once!' as it had been muttered just under the range of Cardassian hearing) 

Reluctantly Damar set the very empty glass down. His rough hands hovered over the rows of tiny colorful bottles.

"Did you have a shade in mind, sir?" he asked. 

Dukat made a show of deliberating. No need to reveal that he had already made this decision hours ago.

"You know I feel tradition should be observed."

Damar nodded solemnly and picked out the flat black and the clear coat. 

As the little bottles were opened their combined scent drifted on the air and Dukat let his teeth slide away from each other, let his lips part just slightly to drink it in. How unfortunate that when the substances dried that lovely scent would disappear. It reminded him of seeing Klingon warbirds explode. Surely it was close to what he imagined to be the scent of high-air, of fire-in-space, of enemy ships in the instant of transformation between an obstacle and a gently floating grave. How sad to be the vastness of space; to have witnessed so many of those beautiful blooms of destruction and possess no sense to appreciate them with.

Ah, but he was stalling. Now to the one solemn part of the process. It really was a show of trust to place his naked foot onto the towel-covered cushion. Even the best armor must necessarily allow for ventilation… Alas, said ventilation opened over what some might argue was a too-obviously placed artery under the gaps between the larger scutes at the back of the ankle. An area that one left rather unprotected in this position, in another’s hands.

Damar was diligent in his work though, first washing each of the four toes with a damp cloth, then sharpening. He used a Klingon sharpener Ducat had kept as a trophy from their time aboard the Bird-of-Prey. Unburdened by civilized standards, it had settings for sharpness somewhat above what was proper.

Several passes with the buffing cloth followed. In the quiet of the room the little sound itself was soothing and his heartbeat slowed in contentment imagining the perfect tableau they made: the earnest subordinate easing his commander's burdens. Making do even with spartan presentation in the true spirit of Cardassian efficiency. Was this not part of the very fabric of service?

As he was thinking this, Damar, impressively steady-handed as he was, had already finished the first coat. Somehow the liquid level in the little kanar bottle also seemed lower... He was distracted as the other man sat back on his haunches and produced another folded towel from the case. 

"Might as well do the other one as it’s drying, sir." 

Loyalty should be rewarded. For too long he had little to give his men except his presence, a phaserbolt for their enemies, and a few hours of good conversation. A province! Yes, he would give Damar a province when he was Prefect again and in the years to come he would imply that his performance today had been the tipping point. How they would both laugh. Yes! Yes, that was an excellent idea!

For now, he leaned back in the chair. There was no music, no food, no soft little hands. Nevertheless, here, in this small moment that was poised to be eclipsed by one of even greater glory and gain, flexing his freshly painted footclaws Skrain Dukat felt himself briefly satisfied.

\- - - 

Benjamin Sisko sighed in relief as the doors slid open. Parts of the rest of the station were once again in shambles - as if a pack of badly behaved kindergartners had knocked over all the block castles before being forced to go home. His office though, and the rest of Ops, had remained untouched with a kind of vaguely malevolent civility.

Really the office looked more or less the same. Full-on grinning was too much to hope for given the long day he’d had, but he could feel his eyes crinkle a little. Apparently his brain had found enough time to imagine what could have been waiting for him and he was pleased to see there were no gaudy draperies or full-length portraits of Dukat leering at him from the walls. 

A look through the desk yielded similarly inoffensive results. The drawers were neat and empty of any sensitive information or sinister memos. He ever found his replica of the Larry Dobby 1949 All-Star ball knocking around the bottom drawer and let himself have a moment of pure childlike relief. At the time he'd appreciated the symbolism of leaving it behind but as soon as he’d stepped onboard the Defiant he’d regretted it immediately. 

Dukat had even kept his old chair. He felt compelled to walk around and examine it before taking a chance and sitting down. Guess he wasn’t too tired to smile after all. It was all pretty funny, wasn’t it -  him tiptoeing around the furniture. No fiendish Cardassian booby traps here, Ben. Though somebody had scuffed up the base. Did the Union uniform boots have steel edging? That would be just like them, wouldn’t it: wrecking a patch of ground just by walking through it.

He knelt down to take a closer look. Forceful impact from something sharp had pitted even the industrial plastic. Once his nostrils were level with the seat, his chef’s nose also detected a certain unidentifiable smell. Wonderful. Eau de Dukat! He would have to replicate some heavy-duty sanitizer and give it the full Sisko treatment. If he'd gotten the hang of shining up the big soup pots in his dad’s kitchen he could get upright-croc-funk out of a chair.

While he was down here he might as well check the underside of the desk, spare Odo's deputies a little work. He'd done a brief stint in security on the way up to Commander and what’d stuck with him was that a lot of surveillance work counted on a senior officer's complacency and their presumably less-bendable knees. Too bad for them. Complacency didn’t have any part of Ben Sisko.

With only the slightest protesting twinge from his lower back he went down on all fours, wedged his head under the bottom edge of the desk and to his brief and fierce disappointment found absolutely nothing. No obvious little black sound-catchers anywhere, no microexplosives affixed to the undersides of the drawers, no suspicious discolorations or cracks in the frame. 

Wait! There was something lying in the shadow of the upper left leg. If he lay flat on the carpet and just reached a little more, breathing out all the way to get his shoulders under the edge his fingers could almost catch it...there! He let out a 'Ha!' of triumph followed by an immediate sneeze. Now he'd have his own trophy to lay faux-casually at the edge of the viewscreen the next time he saw that bastard. 

Squinting, he tried to figure out what he was holding at, running his hand over it in the limited light. It felt smooth and hard on one end and brittle, strangely flaky at the other. Damn, maybe not a bug after all. As he pulled it closer to his face the little details became clearer but his mind couldn't assemble them into sense. It looked like a large claw. Or the remains of one. The restaurant had had a cat come around the back - a mean old gray that would scratch at the potato sacks. He would find shed whiskers and old clawtips in the dustpan as he was sweeping up. The pockmarks in the chair...

"Ugh!!" 

He flung it away and frantically crab-crawled backwards, needing to be out of the confined space. The empty room was briefly resplendent with invective as he hit his head on the edge of the desk in his hurry to stand up. After a couple of deep breaths he slowly walked around the desk and crouched down to examine it. A claw tip that seemed to be… lacquered? Its end glinted glossy-black against the carpeting. Confirming his theory, clinging to the wider end were a few very small dry scales.

He could feel wrinkles forming on his nose, - a proper Bajoran emissary at last, as his face squinched itself up in disgust. Breathing strictly through his mouth he tapped his combadge.

"Odo!"

"Commander, was there something you needed?"

"I need a team up to my office. As soon as you can manage. I'm concerned that Gul Dukat has left us with some unpleasant surprises."

In the meantime, before any personnel could come through the door and see him, he gave in to a full-body shudder. With a forceful nudge of the Human’s boot the unfortunate hygienic leftover was sent sailing across the carpet to thunk against the door. For the first time he was grateful the Captain's quarters came with their own ‘chemical decontaminant’ shower setting. 

Who gave a damn if the oily nail-shedding bastard might count it as a win. Benjamin Lafayette Sisko ran a clean kitchen and a tight ship. This office was going to get scourged top to bottom and he would personally be burning that chair.

-fin-


End file.
